No. They have alumni associations... and sleep with corporations while married to the government.

And in the US, they just slap extra fees on top of the tuition - like a big fat fee for the "it'll make us a lot of money in the future" football team and some other fees to help pay for scholarships because so many people can't afford the tuition - because of all the added fees.

I think I'm probably okay with fees. Even high fees. I've never had to pay any so maybe my point of view a bit abstract but paying for a course of study makes sense. What doesn't make sense is paying for a course of study and then on top of that organizing a bake sale to support the institution offering the course. Undoubtedly I am glossing over a range and variety of economic and political issues, but if educational institutions are relying on ad hoc funding that isn't even competitive enough to be a going business concern in its own right..... I think it means education isn't valued.

But it occurs to me I might be talking out of my backside. I mean, if parents are grubbing about baking cakes and manning stalls, then obviously they're committed to some aspect of these institutions. And if this stuff is some ubiquitous as to be almost an institution in its own right, then it's not just some education institutions that are valued in this: it's all of them.

But screw all that noise because I'm pretty sure if education were valued, it wouldn't be industrialized. It'd be a sophisticated institution with lofty standards and goals and it'd have a poop load more substance than it does.

I used to ask students were they considering postgraduate work because they loved their subject. that was always good for a groan.

As the extra scholarship fees kept piling up, I became more and more convinced that the long term plan at my University was to get Bill Gates to enroll for 1 credit hour per semester, since he's the only one who could afford to provide full scholarships for the other 40,000 or so students at the school.

Is it Norway or Denmark, I forget. The one where they pay teachers a lot of money, there are no exams in high school, and university is free.... and they have the highest national academic results of the developed world